


thank you for the meal

by theformerone



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cooking as Courting, F/M, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-04-30 07:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14492091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: Tsunade tells him that the best way to a woman's heart is through her stomach. Naruto leaves Sakura snacks.





	thank you for the meal

It begins - like nearly everything involving Naruto does - with a bowl of noodles.

* * *

Sakura works really long hours. Naruto notices. 

He's been apprenticed to Tsunade ever since the war ended; she's the sole Senju and so has a seat on the Elder's Council, plus she's lived through three Shinobi World Wars. Kakashi can teach him plenty, yes, but if he wants a solid education on how to be a good Hokage, he's going to get much more thorough instruction from Tsunade. She's had experience teaching that Kakashi hasn't, and Shizune, Sakura, and Ino are proof of her excellent track record. 

So as her apprentice, Naruto spends his days, afternoons, and evenings with Tsunade. And spending his days, afternoons, and evenings with Tsunade means talking with foreign dignitaries, talking with the heads of  _all_ of Konoha's clans (not just the noble ones), as well as having tea with the daimyo's niece. It maneuvers him into a very good position; Kakashi has never really been a people person, but Tsunade has traveled all of Fire Country. She can speak with princesses and farmers with ease. She knew her people well.

"My grandfather said," she tells him over sake, "that those who are best suited to run nations are those who can empathize with every citizen within them."

Naruto nods, and does his best to follow his shishou's example. He talks with people. He meets them where they are, and tries to open up lines of warm communication. The old days are over, Naruto is sure, and he is not willing to let the world slide back into terse silences or open hostility. 

So he spends nearly every waking moment he has with Tsunade. He's by her side taking notes, or he's discussing past foreign policy, or he's reciting the limitations of the sanctions Konoha held against Kumo after the Hyūga Affair. He starts getting a head for names and dates, easily remembers birthdays and anniversaries, and starts personally reminding Tsunade of the daimyo's niece's twenty-first birthday, or of the harvest festival celebrated by the farming towns in the throat of Fire Country.

Whenever he remembers something or answers one of her questions correctly, she gives him a grin or a pinch on the cheek. She tells him not to get too ahead of himself, then doubles his workload. 

"You can write the birthday card since you remember so well," she says, grinning behind her pink painted lips.

Naruto rubs his cheek where her pinch left a red mark, and he gets to work. 

Tsunade spends most of her time in the village. That time is split rather evenly between the hospital, her public private quarters (for meetings with foreign dignitaries, nobles, and the like), and her own actually private quarters on the Senju compound. Naruto gets really used to darting between locations as per her request (read: demand), and he always looks forward to going to the hospital. 

Sakura spends an astonishing amount of time in the hospital. Really. The other nurses are convinced she doesn't sleep, and Naruto only knows that because he's actively working on his people-person skills instead of just "resting on Minato's pretty face, and Kushina's glowing personality," as Tsunade liked to put it. 

"She wants to be the head of the hospital by the time Tsunade-sama steps down," Shizune says when he asks her.

Naruto furrows his brows, thinks back to the last time he and Tsunade discussed her retirement. 

"Isn't that gonna be in like, three years?"

"About that, yes," Shizune says, nodding as she does. 

Naruto's eyes nearly bug out of his head. 

"She wants to be the director by the time she's  _twenty-three?"_ he asks. "I don't even plan on being Hokage until I'm  _thirty!"_

Shizune laughs a little at that, but it's clear she agrees with his surprise.

"Sakura's a very hard worker," she explains. "When she decides that she wants something, she does everything she can to get it."

Naruto nods, because well,  _obviously_. Sakura is indisputably talented, and she poured years of blood, sweat, and tears to get there. Naruto had only seen a fraction of her hard work when he got back to Konoha, and he's seen the fruits of her labor unfold since then. 

"Though I do worry she'll burn herself out," Shizune says, tapping a finger to her chin. "She has to be approved by the board, and she needs to have met certain parameters for experience so that she's qualified. So she's working really hard so that she'll be qualified by then."

"What kind of qualifications does she need?" he asks, stuffing his hands into his pockets. 

Shizune shrugs. 

"A certain number of successful surgeries done in all of the departments; neurological, cardiac, gynecological, to name a few," she answers, lifting her fingers into the air to count. "She has to have a certain number of cesareans and natural births, and she has to do all kinds of research."

Naruto blinks. 

"Is she gonna be able to do all of that in three years?" 

Shizune gives him a half smile. 

"That's what we're all kind of worried about," she says. "She's doing her best, which means she's doing nearly perfectly. She works night hours and does research and major surgeries in the day. But she isn't getting enough sleep, and she isn't eating enough. She'll burn out before long, and then she'll be even further away from her goal."

Naruto has always been prone to hearing calls of action where none are explicitly voiced. He says his pleasant goodbyes to Shizune before he uses one of his own modified Hiraishin kunai to bolt to his place and back again. When he returns, it's with a pack of instant ramen. He leaves it in Sakura's locker with a little doodle that says 'Keep up the good work!'. 

The nurses tell him it goes over very well; that Sakura isn't a big fan of beef ramen, but she ate the whole thing. 

* * *

"What?" 

Tsunade looks at him over the top of her newspaper, clearly unimpressed. 

"What are Sakura's favorite foods?"

She shakes her newspaper and goes back to ignoring him. 

"How should I know?"

"She was your student for three years -,"

"Five years. I -,"

"Trained her still through the war, I know, baa-chan. Which is why I'm asking for your help."

Tsunade huffs, and turns the page of her paper. 

"Are you wooing my student?" 

Naruto's jaw drops. He sputters, unsure of how to answer the question. 

"I - I mean, not really, but I mean - I wouldn't - I just want to help, but -,"

"They say," Tsunade muses, eyes tracking the section on horse races, "that the best way to a woman's heart is through her stomach."

Her hazel eyes flick up to him. Naruto feels like he's beet red. 

"I'm inclined to agree."

"I don't -," Naruto starts. He stops, then takes a deep breath. "I'm not  _wooing_ Sakura-chan. I just want to give her a hand."

Tsunade's fine golden eyebrow lifts, then her gaze flickers back down to her newspaper. 

"She likes sweets."

* * *

Naruto and Sakura are neighbors. Naruto knows this because he helped Sakura move out of her parents' house. Her mother had died during the war, and their house had been decimated, so the both of them moved; Kizashi to a new house, and Sakura into an apartment near the hospital. 

Naruto is in the same complex because of its proximity to the Hokage Tower and the Senju compound. Sakura being his neighbor had been a bonus. But after he had helped her move in, he had rarely seen her. He had guessed she took night shifts at the hospital; she probably slept all day while Naruto was working with Tsunade, which meant that their schedules never matched up. 

Now that Naruto is aware of why exactly Sakura is rarely in her apartment, he devises a plan. Like almost all of the plans that he comes up with when he spends some serious time putting it together, it works perfectly. 

He discovers from good old fashioned shinobi paranoia that Sakura leaves the complex around ten forty-five every evening. He doesn't initially mean to track her movements; that happens accidentally. He keeps tabs on everyone close to him; Sasuke, Sai, Yamato, Iruka, Kakashi, Tsunade,  _and_ Sakura.

He feels their chakra signatures moving around the village or even across the nation when they are out of the village. It's second nature to feel where they are, and he doesn't think very much of it until he's standing outside of Sakura's door at ten o'clock with a cup of steaming chicken flavored noodles in hand. 

She opens the door, running a brush through her hair. She looks surprised to see him there. 

"Naruto?" 

"Sakura-chan," he says, grinning. "Good morning!"

She smiles at him, a curious look in her eye. 

"It's ten o'clock at night, Naruto."

"Yeah, I know that," he quips. "But it's morning for you, isn't it? You've been working night shifts lately."

Her bright eyes narrow, and Naruto knows he's toeing trouble's line. 

"Who told you that?" 

Naruto scratches the back of his head sheepishly, very aware of how creepy he's about to sound. 

"You did," he says, starting to explain. "I can feel your chakra. Yours, all of Team Seven's, plus Iruka-sensei and baa-chan. I just, uh,  _felt_ you leaving?" 

She doesn't look pleased at all about that. Naruto holds the hot cup of noodles to his chest to protect it in case she's feel especially slap-happy this evening. 

"I don't track you," he hurries, defending himself. "I'm just kind of, always aware? I can't really turn it off. Like, right now, I know baa-chan is at home and Kaka-sensei is in his office, and Yamato and Iruka-sensei are with him -,"

Sakura's face gets pink at that, and she lifts a hand to stop him. 

"I get it, I get it," she replies, twirling her brush absently in her hand. The suspicion in her expression clears, and she looks at him expectantly. "So what's up? Did you need something?"

Naruto shakes his head, and holds out the noodles. 

"Breakfast," he says. 

Sakura blinks. 

"Breakfast."

"Well," he explains, "I figured you wouldn't want to eat omelettes this late at night, just because it doesn't look like the right time of day to eat omelettes. So I thought ramen was as good as anything else."

Sakura nods. 

"Right," she says, reaching out to carefully take the cup of noodles from him. 

"I brought beef to your locker last time because I was in a rush, but I think one of the nurses told me you didn't like it, so here's chicken flavored."

Sakura uses the edge of her fingernail to lift the paper wrapper on top of the cup. She looks back up at Naruto in surprise. 

"There's vegetables in this one." 

Naruto chuckles. 

"Yeah," he says. "Baa-chan  _really_ got on my case after the war about eating better, so now I cut up a bunch of veggies and I pop them in the soup when I eat instant noodles. Do you like bell pepper?"

Sakura looks like the world has been shaken from underneath her feet. Like Naruto is the one who can crack boulders with his pinky, and has decided to start with their hallway. 

"I do," she says. "I love bell pepper."

"Great!" Naruto says, grinning. He claps his hands together and takes a step away from her door. "I know you're really busy with your night shift, so I'll leave you to it. Eat well, and good luck today!"

He turns around to head down the hall towards his own apartment when Sakura's voice stops him. 

"Naruto!" 

He looks back over his shoulder to where Sakura is smiling at him, that soft fond smile, the one she only offers the world sometimes, like when Sai manages to get through a whole human interaction without hurting someone’s feelings, or when Kakashi summons his ninken for a full Team Seven cuddle puddle. She raises the cup of noodles in a little salute.

"Thank you for the meal." 

He gives her a thumbs up, and waits to continue back down the hall until she shuts her door. He doesn't deny himself the victory fist bump he wants to indulge in, mostly because he knows that no one is around to see it. He speeds back to his apartment, still caught up on that soft smile of hers, and the way the corners of her eyes crinkle when she's at her most content.

Naruto  _floats_ back into bed. 

* * *

"What?"

Sasuke is sitting cross legged in the Uchiha compound, looking just as annoyed as he always does. There are about thirty kids running around, all yelling, all excited and happy. The orphanage had been Sasuke's idea, but he hadn't been put in charge of it. No, that had been Iruka-sensei's project.

Sasuke only lived on the property, as did Neji, overseeing the development of the shinobi orphans; ones that were too old to go into the quarter and too young to be left to their own devices as Naruto had been when he was their age. 

"I need you to teach me how to make onigiri."

Sasuke is folding laundry and looks like he's on the verge of calling Naruto an idiot. 

"You don't know how to do it yourself?"

Naruto shrugs. 

"I always bought packaged food," he says. "I never really learned how to cook for myself."

"And now you need help," Sasuke says, deftly folding a pair of socks, "to make rice balls." 

Naruto lifts the bag of groceries in his hand. 

"Are you going to help me or not?"

"He isn't," Neji says, arriving with a basket of laundry on his hip. He drops it right beside Sasuke, who scowls like that can beat the newly cleaned shirts into submission. "He's busy. I'll teach you."

Sasuke looks like a wet cat, he's clearly so enraged by the idea of folding laundry on the porch by himself. Neji bends down, tugs at one of Sasuke's forelocks, and brushes their lips together. Sasuke abruptly turns pink and ducks away to get back to folding. 

"Is that all we had to do this entire time?" Naruto asks as he steps into the main house with Neji at his side. "Just pop one on him? That was it?"

Neji shrugs a shoulder and takes the groceries from Naruto. 

"It worked when you did it in the academy," he says. "I'm surprised you never tried it again."

Naruto snorts at that, watching as Neji unpacks the groceries on the kitchen counter. 

"Alright," Neji says, rolling up his sleeves. "Wash your hands."

* * *

"Naruto. Naruto.  _Naruto._ "

He snaps back into the present, his hands absentmindedly bouncing a non-existent lump of rice between his hands. Making those things into reasonable looking pyramids was much harder than it looked. 

"What is it, granny?"

Tsuande looks vaguely irritated, which isn't any different than how she usually looks. 

"Our annoying cousin is very insistent on restoring the lost fuinjutsu of Uzushio," Tsunade says, flicking through Karin's actual three hundred forty-five page proposal on why excavating what was left of Uzushio was something that Konoha owed its fallen ally and all of its descendants."

"Karin _is_ annoying," he replies, ceding the point. "But she's rarely wrong. If she thinks it's a good idea, I trust her judgement."

"Oh?" Tsunade chirps. "The girl who followed Orochimaru, followed your idiot teammate around the world has good judgement?"

"She was Orochimaru's warden," Naruto says, putting a hand on Karin's dossier and tugging it over to himself. He flicks through its opening pages and can already feel a headache coming on. "That speaks of high organizational and high management skills." 

He licks his thumb and starts skimming at around page twenty when the introduction is finally over. 

"Besides, the fuinjutsu that hadn't been raided fro Uzushio after the genocide is mostly arcane or cultural stuff," he reasons. "Stuff that Kiri shinobi couldn't lift because they didn't understand its significance. There's a couple of second and third generation Uzushio shinobi left in Konoha that might be able to understand how to use it. The population of first generation immigrants is dwindling fast.”

"And what on earth would be done with this fuinjutsu, now that we're in a potentially long lasting peace?"

Naruto shrugs. 

"Preserve it," he says, pointing to the proposal. "Karin's got it outlined right here, and I'd agree with her. It's doubtful that a lot of the combat stuff could be learned or understood at this point. Most fuinjutsu masters only have a passing understanding of the basics of Uzushio sealing. So whatever's left would be preserved for the sake of making sure Uzushio itself doesn't fade from memory."

He kind of gets really engrossed in Karin's proposal. Once he gets through the thinly veiled threats and 'fuck you's in her introduction, the entirety of the proposal is a really persuasive call to action to protect the last of what is left from Uzushio. It's good, and Karin must know it's good, because otherwise, she wouldn't send it to Tsunade. If you wanted something to end up directly on the Rokudaime's desk, you never sent it to him. You got it vetted by the Godaime first. 

Karin isn't a citizen of Konoha per se, she's still more missing nin than anyone else. She's been camped out, happy as a clam on the border of Whirlpool Country, in the mouth of Uzushio, the wards on the beaches allowing her safe passage across the water and back again because of her Uzumaki blood.

Hinata was there, too, having mild heart attacks every time Karin disappeared to the island and something exploded, narrowly avoiding calling down the entire Allied Shinobi Forces to rescue her idiot girlfriend from accidentally blowing herself up on a landmine seal.

"Hm."

Naruto's eyes flick up to his teacher, who is eyeing him with undisguised amusement in her eyes. 

"You may have a point there, brat," she says. 

She tosses a red pen at his face, and Naruto snatches it out of the air before it can collide with her nose. 

"Revise that thing for any of the obscenity I know she left behind in it. Defang the introduction so she doesn't sound like she's about to grab the Mizukage by the balls to make her do this; Mei knows she has reparations to pay, she'll be happy to concede."

Naruto nods brusquely and heads to his desk on the other side of the room. 

"Have it done by the end of the day if you can," Tsunade says. "Karin will need to incorporate the revisions by the end of the week if she wants that thing on that brat Kakashi's desk for his weekly briefing."

"Can do, granny."

He settles down at his desk, flipping back to the introduction and pulling out a pack of sticky notes so he can leave more polite language suggestions without messing up Karin's proposal.

"And Naruto."

Her tone makes him look up. 

"I'd consider taking up the position of Uzumaki clan head," she says, with her chin in her hand, looking down at some important document or another. 

"Baa-chan?" 

She shrugs. 

"Just a thought," she replies, easy as can be. "Kushina, your mother, was the direct descendant of Uzumaki Yashiro, Uzumaki Mito's brother and my great-uncle. I can't lead the Senju and the Uzumaki at once, and by all means, in terms of blood rights, you are the suitable heir of the Uzumaki."

Logically, Naruto knows all of that. Karin may be an Uzumaki, a full blooded one at that, but she has no name, and therefore, no way to properly trace her blood all the way back to the island. Naruto has his mother, though he never knew her, and Tsunade is his family, has the family trees of the Senju and the Uzumaki where they met with the marriage of the Shodaime and Uzumaki Mito. 

"If you take the position," she says, flipping a page in her dossier, "and you name Karin your heir, your cause will be immediately legitimated."

Naruto thinks of the ruins of Uzushio, of Karin wandering them alone, of Hinata waiting on the shoreline, her blood not allowing her to go any further. He thinks of the island where his mother grew up, decimated. He wonders what is left there, what hasn't been raided, what has been left to rot and to mold. There are stories of Uzushio, ones written down in the library and ones Naruto has heard from spending time in the quarter, once he finally knew what the name 'Uzumaki' meant. 

He already knew the value in protecting what was left of his mother's people. Of his own people. 

"I'll need nominations -,"

Tsunade scoffs. 

"Yes, the idiot that saved the world three times over will really have to scrounge for letters of recommendation from his distant Uzushio cousins," she mutters. "Ask Karin for one, and ask the quarter for the public nomination. You'll have a seat on the council in no time."

Naruto nods, and slides off a sticky note so he can scribble down this new task, this new, completely out-of-left-field task. He didn't think he was going to become the head of the Uzumaki when he woke up that morning, that was for sure. 

"Naruto."

He looks back at his teacher, still sort of gobsmacked from the way the conversation has turned. She smiles at him, waving her hand. 

"Back to work."

Naruto laughs, and shifts his focus back to Karin's proposal.

* * *

There are six slightly lopsided onigiri in Sakura's locker when she changes out of her evening scrubs and into her business casual clothes for her research. Each of them are carefully decorated with bits of seaweed; some have plain smiley faces, and others have little four petaled cherry blossoms on them. 

There's a note beside them, written in atrocious handwriting, that the cherry blossom onigiri have umeboshi at the center, and that the smiley faced-ones have tempura shrimp and salted salmon.

It's the first home-cooked meal she's had in months. She puts up the little note on her refrigerator when she gets home, and she wonders if there will be another meal in store for her when she leaves that night for work.

* * *

Naruto tries a little harder this time. He gets out his nice ceramic bowl and lid, and washes them to make sure they're clean. While the set dries, he chops one leek, grabs a handful of bean sprouts, and opens a can of corn to add for toppings. 

He boils water for a packet of ramen, and double, then triple checks the expiration date on the eggs and ham in his fridge. He boils one egg, then drops the packet of dry ramen in the ceramic bowl, and pours in the boiling water. 

He cuts the egg in half, then slides in both halves, the ham slices, the leek, the bean sprouts, and the corn. He lets all of it rest for three minutes. When the fourth minute is up, he leaves his apartment and walks slowly down the hall. He knocks on Sakura's door with his knee. 

She's slightly less dressed this time, in her pajamas instead of in her work clothes already. She must be running behind this evening. 

"Good morning," he says, beaming at her. 

She looks sleepier, and she rubs at the edges of her eyes to wake herself up. 

"Naruto?"

"In the flesh. Have you eaten yet?"

She shakes her head and lets out a small yawn. 

"No, I haven't, not yet," she confesses. "I haven't even brushed my teeth yet."

"Here," Naruto says, offering her the ceramic bowl. "Eat first. If you brush your teeth after you eat, it won't ruin the flavor of your breakfast."

Sakura reaches out to take the bowl, her small calloused fingers bumping against Naruto's as she does so. She carefully lifts the lid of the bowl, and looks just as surprised as she had the last time he brought her food. 

"You made this, too?"

Naruto rubs a finger under his nose, grinning. 

"It's nothing, Sakura-chan," he says. "It was really easy."

 She turns a head over her shoulder to look back into her apartment before she lifts one hand and jabs a thumb back inside. 

"Do you want to come in?" she asks. "It's a little messy, but there's space for you to sit. I could make you some toast?"

She smiles a little, kind of awkward. Naruto shakes his head. 

"Nah, Sakura-chan, I've gotta head to bed," he says. "Baa-chan has a new project for me, and I've gotta get some sleep."

"Oh." Sakura almost looks like she deflates, some of the spark in her relaxing. "Oh, that's alright, then. Sorry to keep you up."

Naruto waves a hand. 

"You're not keeping me up, Sakura-chan," he says. "I'm just happy to help." 

Sakura smiles at that, carefully wrapping her hands around the warm ceramic bowl in her grasp. 

"Well thank you, Naruto," she says. "For this, and for the onigiri. Those were really good."

Naruto claps his hands in victory.

"Really?" he asks. "I knew it. Sasuke kept saying they were too salty, but I thought they tasted just fine. That'll show him."

"You made Sasuke onigiri?" Sakura asks, hiding a laugh behind her hand. 

"Sasuke-teme?" Naruto blusters. "Oh man, no way. He taste tested them. It was my first time making them, so I wanted to be sure I made them right."

Sakura's laugh drops off her face at that, her fingertips still gently touching her mouth. 

"You just learned how to make onigiri?" 

Naruto laughs nervously, sticking his arm behind his head. 

"Could you tell?" 

Sakura adjusts the ceramic bowl in her hand, careful to tap the lid down over it to make sure the broth inside doesn't spill. 

"Not at all," she replies. "They didn't taste too salty at all. My dad makes them that way, so they were perfect!"

A high pitched beeping goes off inside of Sakura's apartment, and she looks over her shoulder, cursing as she does. 

"And that's the alarm that makes sure I actually get out of bed," she grouses. When she looks back at Naruto, her expression clears, and she nods at him. "Thank you for breakfast again, Naruto, and for lunch earlier today. I'll be sure to pay you back soon."

Naruto shakes his head, grinning. 

"No need to pay me back, Sakura-chan," he says. "I'm just happy to help."

* * *

"What?" Ino asks, looking up from behind her desk in T&I. 

She's the head of Analysis now that her father's passed, promoted not only due to the vacancy in the position, but also because she's a Yamanaka and a damn strong one at that. She wears the long black coat and the accompanying terror that fills the hearts of whoever crosses her very well. 

"Smoothies," Naruto says. "You make really good smoothies, right?"

Ino drums her fingertips on her desk, looking at the file that Naruto has dropped off. 

"Aren't you on errands for Godaime-sama?" she asks.

"I am." 

"Then why are you asking me about smoothies?" she asks, flicking the file open. "That's more of an after hours kind of question." 

"Is it?" 

Ino hums, licking her finger to flick through the papers on her desk. 

"Uzushio, really?" she asks, eyes flicking back up to Naruto and then back down at the file. "I hear we're gonna have a new Uzumaki clan head, if all goes well."

She says it like that isn't a conversation that Naruto had less than a week ago in Tsunade's private office. Naruto will never understand how Ino gets her information, and he's pretty sure he will never ask. 

"You've been working on expanding the Analysis Division into doing less mind penetrative stuff. You've been poaching on Research and Development's territory ever since you took the position," Naruto says, arms folded as Ino's eyes flicker through the report. "We figured this would be as safe a starting point as any."

The fuinjutsu that Karin had discovered in the caves of Uzushio was spread across the island in the same way a neural network operated in a human being's mind. The development was clearly enough to make Ino salivate. It meant the island was capable of thought, to an extend. Fuinjutsu that large, that sophisticated, were storied in the ability to retain emotional impressions of those whose chakra had been poured into them. 

"You'd be overseeing the mission of course," Naruto says, "with a team of Uzushio shinobi whose blood will grant them passage onto the island."

Ino hums, flipping her long blonde hair over her shoulder. 

"After the genocide, a mass protection seal was activated," she murmurs, reading aloud. "No one without Uzushio blood can get in or out…"

"But," Naruto interjects. "With the right guide, you'd have easy access."

Ino looks up at him, skeptical. 

"Hinata has been out there with your batshit crazy cousin for months and they haven't made any headway."

Naruto rolls his eyes. 

"Karin didn't know she was an Uzumaki until the war. And even then, she's not a fuinjutsu master. It would take someone with enough skill in that area to weaken the protection seal that keeps people without a blood tie to Uzushio out of it."

"And that's where the Uzushio refugees come in?"

"Exactly."

"How are your cousins in the quarter?" Ino asks, attention back on the file below her. 

"Good."

A massive understatement. 

When Naruto came back from the war, aware of who his parents were, he had tripped over his own feet to figure out if there were any Namikaze or Uzumaki left in the world. His father had been the last of his line, but everyone in the Uzushio quarter had known Kushina. When Naruto had come to the quarter in the first weeks after the war, he had been welcomed. 

"We wanted to adopt you," said Seri, a distant cousin with rich orange hair. "But the gag order meant that none of us could. Not without you finding out." 

The Uzushio quarter had been halved again after the war; the few shinobi therein that had been true fuinjutsu masters had been charged with creating barrier seals strong enough to protect the last civilians of the world. Some had survived the war, some had not. But there were enough of them left that remembered the old ways, or had been taught them by their own recently departed family members. 

To say they had been eager to see Naruto's nomination as the clan head of the Uzumaki go through was an understatement to say the least. Enthusiasm wasn't a trait only to the Uzumaki of Uzushio, that much was true. 

"I can imagine," Ino says, a crooked smile on her lips. 

She picks up a stamp and an ink pad, and wets the stamp liberally. 

"I'll take it," she says, but before she can stamp the Analysis Division's approval on the mission request, Naruto reaches out, and snatches the folder towards him. 

"Smoothie recipe."

Ino lifts an eyebrow. 

"What are you up to?"

Naruto frowns. 

"Why does everyone think I'm up to something?"

"Because your definition of cooking from the ages of six until sixteen," Ino says, cheerfully mean, "was instant noodles. If you of all people want to know how to eat something healthy, it's because you're trying to impress someone."

She thinks about it for a moment. 

"Or to kill them." 

Naruto rubs his hand over his forehead. 

"The war is over," he says, exasperated. "I have no one to kill."

"Then you have someone to impress."

"I have someone I want to help."

"Who?"

"Why do you need to know?"

"That means it's either Sasuke, Sai, or Sakura."

"You are the most annoying person I've ever met in my life."

"Sai or Sakura."

" _Ino._ "

"Definitely Sakura."

Naruto lifts the folder in his hand and waves it back and forth. 

"Do you want the mission or not?" 

Ino snorts and tugs out an index card from her desk. She plucks up a pen and writes something out before she rises to her feet. She walks around her desk, snatches the folder out of Naruto's hand before replacing it with the index card. 

"She likes plums," Ino says. "They aren't in season right now, but frozen will do."

She walks around him to exit her office. Naruto brings the index card to his nose, brows furrowed; it smells vaguely of orchids. 

"Also," Ino says, making Naruto turn his head to see her standing in the doorway. "Don't try hustle me in  _my_ department, Uzumaki. I can literally fry your brain with _my_ brain."

She waves her fingers at him, blows a kiss and says, "Ta," before exiting. Naruto only rolls his eyes, but he's grateful. There are  _two_ smoothie recipes on the pale purple index card, and he already has an idea of which one he wants to make first. 

* * *

"You got sign off from Analysis," Tsunade muses, looking at the file on her desk.

It's probably incredibly illegal for her to have this much information on the inner workings of the village considering she isn't running it any longer, but Kakashi trusts her judgement implicitly. So it stays only vaguely illegal. 

"It'll take more time for my nomination for Uzumaki clan head to go through the proper paperwork channels," Naruto says. 

"Meaning we have to make sure Karin's written nomination hasn't gotten lost in the mail," Tsunade grumbles. "Knowing her, she'd send seventy messenger hawks just to make sure. She's eager as all hell to get onto the island."

"Which is why," Naruto says, "I went ahead and did this."

He produces the filed and stamped mission request form from behind his back, and hands it over to his teacher. 

"It's just a preliminary scouting mission," he says. "I'll be heading onto the island solo with Karin, just to see what there is to see. I'm of Uzumaki Yashiro's line, so there may be more places on the island open to me than there are to her."

Tsunade reads the mission report, then looks up at Naruto like he's an idiot. 

"And you think going solo is a good idea because?" 

Naruto shrugs a shoulder. 

"What's the worst that could happen?"

Tsunade pinches the bridge of her nose. 

"You are the last person that should ever say that. Ever."

He shrugs. 

"Kakashi-sensei already signed off on it. It's just a one week thing, there and back again," he says, trying to sound reassuring. "I'll be there and back in no time."

Tsunade hums and hands the form back to him. 

"See that you are," she says. "You know dates better than I do and there are lots of birthday cards to write. Not to mention my student might actually become malnourished if you stop cooking for her. It'd be a shame to lose two of my brats _and_ my reputation if you die out there."

Naruto ignores how red his ears feel at mention of Sakura. He doubts that she'll really become malnourished if he's gone for a week, but it's nice to know his help has been appreciated.

* * *

The smoothie is a surprise in the community refrigerator rather than in her locker. A sticky note on it lists the ingredients; strawberries, baby spinach, coconut water, bananas, grapes, and her  _favorite,_ frozen plums. 

The sticky note also says, 'Property of Haruno Sakura, do not touch on penalty of her Cherry Blossom Impact', written between a number of haphazardly drawn rocks, with lots of action lines and cherry blossoms, indicating that her favored axe kick had recently been executed. 

On the back of the note, however, is a sad faced toad, explaining that this will be the last surprise for a little while, but not to give up hope, because yummy midday treats will return soon! 

She tries not to feel disappointed. It isn't another smoothie or a midday treat that she's looking forward to, but she's come to like having Naruto putter to her apartment door with a souped up bowl of instant ramen in his hands, offering her dinner. It's been nice seeing him. It's been nice talking to him. Being near him again after so long not seeing anyone during her mad dash to become the director of the hospital in three years or less. 

She raps her knuckles on her forehead and berates herself. 

"There I go again, relying on you," she mumbles. 

But that isn't it, not really. It's something else. Sakura misses everyone that she hasn't seen because of her work. But missing Ino and Sai and Tsunade and Shizune, missing Tenten and Neji and Kiba, none of that every really hit her the way the little note on the smoothie does, when it tells her that Naruto will be absent from the village for some time. It occurs to her that it's unfair that she's been AWOL for so long, and that she has no right to be upset about Naruto having a mission. 

But it saddens her anyways. She misses him and his ramen, and his sheepish smiles, and his easy laughter. She misses  _him_. 

Sakura sticks the note up on her refrigerator at home, next to the one he left on the little tupperware of onigiri, and counts down the days until he comes home.

* * *

Karin is just as annoying as Naruto remembers, but the beaches of Whirlpool Country are just as incredible as Naruto had been told they were. 

Hinata is just as kind as he remembers, with a lot less of the stuttering and the shyness. Her hair is cut short in an efficient bob, longer than the hime cut of her childhood, but shorter still than it was when they were seventeen at the end of the war. It suits her, and so does the easy grace she carries herself with. Camping on the Whirlpool border with Karin for the past eight months has done her a world of good. 

"Don't touch anything," Karin grumbles at their base camp. "You'll ruin everything."

Hinata encourages him to sit down, offering him a canteen after his long run to the border. 

"Don't mind her," she says in that voice of hers, soft not because of anxiety, but because she is a regal, quiet woman. She speaks softly, and people quiet down to hear her. "She gets very attuned to the emotions left over in the seals of the island, so sometimes she gets a little snappy."

Concern nips at Naruto's heels, and he takes a quick drink from the canteen before passing it back to Hinata. 

"That was missing from your proposal," he says to his cousin, looking at her as she paces around the camp. 

"It wasn't apparent until recently," Hinata says apologetically. "It's in both of our field notes. If you experience something similar, be sure to write it down. We're hoping the effects might be mitigated when Karin is not the only one on the island."

Naruto nods, absently making sense of it. Karin was an Uzumaki, however distantly, and for the chakra in the seals on the island to be effecting her so deeply said something about how long the emotions had been festering in the seals. It also spoke well for her fortitude, that she only recently started showing the effects after eight months going in and coming off of the island. 

Large scale fuinjutsu relied on several people charging it with chakra; the great barrier seal that protected Uzushio even now was, from Karin's sketches of it, a seal that required at least a fourth of the population to charge and activate. That wasn't even counting the shinobi that used blood fuinjutsu to strengthen it as they lay dying. Karin was carrying the weight of the grief, the rage, of an entire nation on her shoulders. Having more Uzushio shinobi there was bound to mitigate that. 

"I think you two should rest," Hinata says. "Naruto-kun, you've only just arrived, and it takes a great toll to get to the island."

"He'll be fine - ," Karin grouches. 

"And you," Hinata says, turning her pale eyes onto Karin. "You need a snack and a nap. You haven't eaten since this morning."

Before Karin can argue, there's a ration bar in her mouth and a blanket thrown over her shoulders, and Hinata has turned back to Naruto, and explains to him where the softer patches of grass are for unrolling his sleeping bag. He listens to the sound of Hinata and Karin bickering before he counts backwards from thirty, and falls asleep.

He wakes up at dusk, snapping back into consciousness when Karin approaches his sleeping bag. He's up in an instant, and she turns on her heel, aware that she hasn't had to touch him to wake him up. 

"There's a transportation seal on the beach," she says, "but the row boat is a safer bet." 

So they huddle into the row boat, and in under three hours (Naruto having gotten incredibly impatient, blew a fūton from between his palms behind the boat that shot them towards the island like a stone skipping on top of water), they get to Uzushio. 

Naruto sets foot on the island, and it's like being back on Mt. Myōboku. Except, instead of having all of his negative emotions appear in front of him, looking at him, there are countless negative emotions all swaddled in a fierce veneer of  _protect-love-safety_. There is rage in the seals under his feet, rage written into the Uzushio that fell to Kiri's hands, but it is a rage that was born of love. 

Karin is surprisingly patient with him. Careful, almost. She follows him as he lets his feet wander. He looks at crumbled monuments, broken statues of a laughing, dancing goddess. He looks down into pools, into the rivers that cut through Uzushio, and the fish that swim around and over debris that has altered their habitat. 

He sees the orange and red slated roofs, the seals carved onto every flat surface of the island, and Naruto can feel them. Can feel all of them. Thousands upon thousands of people died, and that same number of people gave what last vestiges of life they had to protect the island, to force out those that were not of their blood. He had not felt any strangeness when he stepped onto Uzushio soil; he wonders what it had been like for Hinata, when she discovered that she was not welcome there. 

Something guides his feet, encourages his steps. He will learn later that the seals on Uzushio have been activated and charged for generations on generations; all the way back to Uzumaki Mito herself, and he brother Uzumaki Yashiro. His ancestors are guiding him. His  _mother_ is guiding him. 

The Uzumaki clan compound was clearly hit the hardest by the invasion, but the family placard out front of it remains. Naruto lets his hand ghost over it, and Karin sticks close to his side as he enters. 

They walk through the destroyed compound in a companionable, but mournful silence. Naruto steps into every house, runs his hand over every overturned table or chair, its his fingers brush against the books and scrolls that were left behind after the raiding, after the evacuation. 

He stops in a kitchen, where a cookbook is open faced on the floor. He bends down to pick it up, and carefully moves his fingers through the pages. It's more of a journal than a cookbook; a catalogue of family recipes, augmented and updated as years passed, and trade routes changed. 

 _'Baa-chan likes her mackerel extra salty; try this recipe if you're a reasonable person.' 'This was Yashiro-ojii-sama's favorite spicy tuna. Eat this and live for one thousand years!' 'Mifune-jiji taught me how to make this after a trip to Fire Country.' '_ _Akane-chan says this is how the people in Suna brew their tea.' 'Kushina sends this recipe with love from Konoha.'_

The last note is enough to make Naruto falter. His mother was only a girl when Uzushio fell. She had been sent to Konoha when the fighting was at its worst, the last scion of the Uzumaki clan, sent away from home to protect its future. 

His hands tremble as he lifts the folded recipe from the book. In it, is his mother's hasty scrawl. A childish hand; she hadn't been older than eight when she was enrolled at Konoha's academy. But here is a small piece of her, written in a quick scrawl that makes Naruto choke on his own grief. 

Their handwriting is so alike, it could be identical. 

He reads her notes on Konoha's ramen, how she tried all sorts of noodles from Fire Country, and thought all of them were awful.  _'They make their udon here too salty, y'know,'_ and  _'Their soba is always chewy, y'know'._ He bites down on his knuckles, remembering the way his mother said that phrase, and charmed to the point of tears that she wrote down the vocal tic as well. 

Perhaps a gift for her mother, to let her know her daughter was doing well. An update for her father, to say, 'I'm doing fine, don't worry about me'. 

The one thing Kushina had nothing to complain about was Konoha's ramen.  _'It's the one thing they got right,'_ she says in her short letter, preceding the recipe,  _'but if it were made with all the ingredients from home, it'd be way better'._

Naruto stares at the letter and the recipe written beneath, stares at his mother's childhood handwriting, this infinitely small and infinitely precious piece of her life, and wonders why in the hell he didn't try to get to Uzushio sooner. Why he didn't demand to be the head of the Uzumaki. He didn't give a damn about any of the fuinjutsu on the island, not when there were things like this, little pieces of his family, of his cousins, of his  _people_ waiting to be turned to dust because no one cared enough to bring them to their rightful owners. 

"Naruto."

Karin's voice seems far away. Naruto can't get away from the shock. His eyes glaze over with tears as he reads his mother's transcribed ramen recipe, noting the places where she marks down what ingredients from Konoha could be substituted for ones from Uzushio. 

"Naruto."

The seals beneath the Uzumaki clan compound glow with the sudden reminder of the weight of Naruto's loss. They pulse, heady, excited by his chakra and by Karin's. The compound, the island itself is giddy to have them back. 

"Naruto!"

There is an impression of bright red hair, hair red as a habanero pepper, and sparkling grey eyes. A little girl with long hair, dressed in yellow because it was her favorite color because it was her jiji's favorite color. She loved to scrap in the dirt with her cousins, even though it was unseemly because she was the heir of Uzushio.

She beamed with pride the first time she cut her finger and added her blood and chakra to the seals on her family's land, a big smile, a smile missing one of her front teeth. She had thought to herself, shy and frightened,  _'Please don't forget me,'_ when she added her blood to the seals before she left Uzushio for what was to be the last time.  _'Don't forget me. I'm coming back.'_

He can see her, his mother at eight years old, her red hair wild behind her as she ran through the house, a laugh peeling out of her throat, high and sweet. And he is weeping, because this is the childhood she had deserved, more of this, more laughter, more light, more  _time_ to just  _be_ a little girl, and not a soldier. 

_"Naruto!"_

The little girl turns around; his eyes catch hers. It is someone else's memory, clear as day, and Naruto can see it. She is happy to see him, whoever he may be in this memory; her cousin, her father, her mother, her grandfather? Whoever he is, he makes her smile.

Naruto reaches out to her, but she dodges around a corner. He stands to follow her, not even realizing that he ever had fallen to his knees. He stumbles after her, barely aware of Karin barking his name. He only has eyes for this young Kushina, his mother, happier, younger than he's ever seen her.

Then, she disappears, and Naruto is unconscious.

* * *

 It's five thirty in the morning when he comes in, pulled in on a stretcher, unconscious. 

"Out like a light," Karin reports through gritted teeth. "I tried to warn him. The feedback loop is really intense."

She peels back his eyelids, shines a small flashlight in each of his eyes. 

"Did he hit his head when he fell?"

"No," Karin says. "But it’ll probably seem like he did. The seals make us see things. The memories of the people that used them. Feels like a concussion."

"Are they hallucinations?"

"No. They are the memories of Uzushio shinobi."

She runs through her head all of the potential horrible outcomes of having someone else's thoughts forcibly shoved into your mind. She tells her nurse to prep him for a neurological scan, and to have a Yamanaka on hand to assess lasting psychological damage. 

"Anything else?"

Hinata steps forward, a red, weatherbeaten journal in her hands. 

"He didn't let this go," she says. "We carried him all the way here, and he didn't let this go."

* * *

He wakes up in a hospital bed, fully aware that he is back in Konoha. He blinks, bleary eyed and exhausted; his mouth tastes like cotton. He has no idea how long he has been asleep, or how long he has been away from Uzushio.

He does know, however, that his mother was named after an aunt. Naruto's grandfather's sister. Naruto's grandmother was the Uzumaki, and his grandfather married into the family. His great aunt Kushina died of the flu when she was eleven. His mother was named after her, because their eyes were the same shade of grey.

The grief comes back, and Naruto is well aware that it is not all his own. He can feel Uzushio thrumming in his veins now, can feel his connection to those people, to his people, swarming in his blood. He has to become the clan head, he has to go back, as soon as he can. There is so much that needs to be set right, so much still that needs to be protected.  

He holds his head in his hands and tries to stave off a headache. When he finds that he can't, that the cotton dryness of his mouth is making him want to rip the IV out of his arm in the exact way Sakura tells him he should never do on penalty of death, he rings the call button, scratches his arm, and waits for a nurse. 

Within a handful minutes there is a light knock at the door. Naruto turns his head, and through the haze of Uzushio clouding his senses, he can feel Sakura's chakra, clear as a spring morning, before he even sees her face in the doorway. 

"You had Karin worried," she says to start, clipboard in hand and a bento in the other. 

Naruto scoffs, puffs himself up, braver than he feels. 

"Karin? Worried?"

She shrugs and comes into the room, eyes scanning his charts. 

"Believe it or not," she says. "She had that look on her face during the war, the one she always used when she looked at Sasuke."

Naruto humphs and leans back into the pillows propping him up on the bed. 

"What happened?" 

Sakura looks at him over her clipboard, carefully setting down the bento on his bedside table. He notices then, that the red journal of recipes from his mother's house is still there, still with him. 

He lets out a breath he didn't remember holding. 

"The chakra from the fuinjutsu on your family's compound flooded your tenketsu," she explains. "About ten generations worth of Uzumaki chakra was trying to get into your system. It knocked you out. You wouldn't wake up for anything."

Naruto reaches up and rubs at the bandage on his forehead. 

"Ah," he says. 

"There'll be a Yamanaka in by the end of the day to see if there's any lasting psychological damage done," she explains, "but other than that cut and a mild concussion we already took care of, you're fine."

Naruto nods slowly, and stares at the journal out of the corner of his eye. 

"Kakashi-sensei is worried about how Uzushio might effect the rest of the remaining shinobi," Sakura says, voice lowered as she reveals the information. "Some of them have more memories of the place than you do, so he's concerned their reactions might be worse than yours was."

Naruto is sitting upright in a moment, hands balled in the sheets on his bed. 

"He can't cancel Karin's proposal!" he shouts. "This mission is too important! What's left on Uzushio is too important to lose! The remaining Uzushio shinobi deserve this much from Konoha, after they already weren't able to help Uzushio in the past. Uzushio and everything on it is their birthright, and Kakashi-sensei can't let them not have it."

Sakura has the grace to look surprised for only a moment. She drops Naruto's chart into the cubby at the base of his bed, and sticks her hands in her white coat's pockets. 

"Then you'll have to do your best to get better soon," she says, "so you can prove that to him. Right, Naruto?"

Naruto relaxes his grip on his bedsheets, and Sakura smiles back at him, the early morning light softening her features. 

"Right," he says, breathing easy. The panic had come so quickly it nearly gave him whiplash. He’s glad to have it leave him with the same speed.

"Good," she replies. She points at the bento beside him. "I brought that for you. Hospital food is getting better, but it isn't great. I figured after what happened on the island, you might like something home cooked."

His eyes dart to the bento beside him, and he swallows hard; a home cooked meal? That Sakura made? For him?

"Go on, eat," she says, still smiling. "I didn't poison it."

"Of course you didn't," Naruto replies, picking up the breakfast. "I didn't do anything wrong this week."

"Except worry Karin half to death," she quips. 

"But I didn't worry you?" he asks, unwrapping the soft green cloth wrapping the bento. 

"Nope."

He looks up at her as he opens the box, eyebrows raised in surprise. 

"Really?" 

She nods. 

"I learned a long time ago to always trust that you'll come home, Naruto," she says. "I may have been a little worried when you came back. But all the time you were gone, I didn't lose a wink of sleep."

Naruto doesn't have time to answer, because the smell of the breakfast on his lap is dredging up memories that aren't his own. There's paprika in the rolled scrambled egg, which is whipped to a ridiculous fluffiness because Yashiro-jiji liked paprika, and cousin Ryota picked up the trick while he was bored one afternoon, waiting for the eggs to cook. 

The vegetable soup is slightly spicy, he knows because it's a recipe from great-great-great grandpa Ashina, and no one has touched it since he wrote it down; "If you eat it every day," his grandmother, his mother's mother Sosogu would say, "you'll never catch a cold!" And there are four small sausage links, crispy on the outside like his grandfather, his mother's father Renji liked them. 

Memories of past breakfasts batter Naruto; clearly the chakra of his forbearers has not yet left his system. He looks up at Sakura, misty eyed, and she comes over to sit down at the edge of the bed. 

"A piece of paper fell out of the journal while we were bringing you in," she explains. "I hope you don't mind. One of the nurses gave it to me, and I took it home. I thought it would be a good way to thank you for how you've taken care of me these past few weeks."

Naruto reaches up and wipes at the tears stinging at his eyes. 

"I told you, Sakura-chan, you don't have to thank me or pay me back -,"

"Naruto," she says, interrupting him, her voice as gentle as it ever has been. 

He looks at her, and she looks at him, and Naruto feels his stomach leap up into his chest. 

"You've spent almost all the time you've known me looking after me," she says, pushing some of her hair behind her ear. "Even when I got strong enough to look after myself, you still always had my back."

She reaches out, and places her hand lightly on his. His eyes dart down to it, and then back up at her. 

"Let me look after you," she says, and then winks at him. "Especially when I'm getting paid for it."

His stomach falls. 

"Ah, okay, Sakura-chan," he says, surprised by his own disappointment, and still trying to push it under the rug. "I'll be a good patient. Nothing like Kakashi-sensei, don't you worry."

Sakura rolls her eyes at him. She grabs his hand, threads her fingers and his together, and tugs him towards her. She bridges the gap between them until their foreheads are passed together, and Naruto can feel the incredible power thrumming behind her Byakugō. 

"Naruto, you made me a smoothie. The kind Ino knows I like. You may have chased Sasuke around the world for me and I didn't get it then, but I'm a simpler woman now. Blended fruit will do."

Naruto's face heats up. 

"It will?" 

"Yeah," she says, leaning back and gently knocking their foreheads together. "It will."

She rears back, and gently rubs her thumb over his. Naruto is only slightly concerned about the fact that she just bumped their heads together and he was recently concussed. 

"That journal looks like it has lots of recipes in it," she says. Naruto is suddenly less concerned with his recent concussion, and more enamored with the soft scrape of Sakura's calloused thumb against his hand. "Do you think if we made one a day, we could try all of them?"

His eyes catch her green ones, looking at him with curiosity and the slightest edge of concern. He knows immediately that she'll back off if he asks her to, that she'll leave this one bit of Uzushio for him to hoard on his own. That she'll keep a respectful distance so he can have a tie back to his mother's homeland, to his mother's side of the family. 

But Naruto has never really been able to make himself selfish when it comes to Sakura. 

"I think we could," he says.

Sakura beams at him.

"It's a date," she chirps. Then she points down at the bento still in his lap with her free hand, and gives his hand a Godaime sized squeeze with her other one. "Now eat your breakfast."

With a toothy grin, Naruto lifts his chopsticks and says, “Thabk you for the meal.”

**Author's Note:**

> having your partner whipped is a genetic trait in the hyuuga clan for Reasons
> 
> thank you for reading !! xx
> 
> 7.17.18 - I’m amazed y’all dealt with the sheer number of spelling errors in this fic, considering I binge wrote it at 3am (my prime writing hour). I love you ALL


End file.
